Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam signed off on the plan to arrest the Occupy Nashville protesters, said Bill Gibbons, Commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security at a 10:30 a.m. press conference with reporters.
He said the state stands by its action and insists it didn’t overreact.
“They were very aware that they were trespassing,’’ Gibbons said of the protesters.
The Occupy Nashville protesters who were arrested at 3:10 a.m. today at Legislative Plaza, for violating a state-imposed curfew, were held by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for several hours after a night court commissioner refused to sign warrants for their arrests.